The Swiss company Glas Trösch looks back on a long tradition in glass production and processing. Since its foundation in 1905, the family-owned company has continuously developed and is now one of the leading suppliers in the industry with over 6000 employees. The product range of Glas Trösch includes insulating glass, laminated safety glass, design glass and much more, which are used in numerous applications such as buildings, vehicles, furniture or solar systems.
But despite, or perhaps precisely because of, its size and global presence, Glas Trösch had to contend with a challenge for a long time: there was no uniform solution for the maintenance management of the production facilities at the various locations. Inefficient processes and high administrative costs were the result.
In order to master these challenges and optimise maintenance, Glas Trösch decided to look for suitable maintenance software (CMMS). Manuel Spiliotis played a decisive role in this as Project Manager Process Engineering. He recognised the need for a uniform solution due to the size and diversity of the company and the complexity of the production facilities at the various locations.
"Each site had its own solution for managing maintenance activities. This led to inefficient processes and high administrative costs. We had to change that."
The path to suitable maintenance software
Mr Spiliotis set himself the goal of finding maintenance software that met the company's requirements. He and his team initiated an evaluation of vendors on the market to create a comprehensive list of candidates.
The requirements for the maintenance software were diverse and demanding. The software had to be multilingual, as Glas Trösch is active in different countries and the maintenance staff had to work in their mother tongue. The software had to be easy to use in order to facilitate the implementation and training of the maintenance staff on the one hand and to increase the acceptance of the employees on the other. Data protection was a key aspect, as Glas Trösch attaches great importance to data confidentiality. It was also desired that the central management be able to access the information of the individual locations securely and from anywhere and obtain an overview of the maintenance processes - therefore a cloud solution was set.
Glas Trösch opted for MaintMaster after careful examination and evaluation of the various suppliers on the market.
"MaintMaster met all the key requirements and offered a comprehensive feature set tailored to the company's exact needs."
The locations decide how you want to use MaintMaster
The introduction of MaintMaster was on a voluntary basis. The sites could decide whether and how to use MaintMaster. The participating sites were supported by Mr Spiliotis' project team. In the meantime, 15 out of 20 sites are connected to MaintMaster. The extent to which the respective maintenance departments use MaintMaster is up to them. Some sites only use MaintMaster for the processing of fault reports, others use MaintMaster for a variety of maintenance processes.
The flexibility and pricing of MaintMaster is a great advantage, as the required functions are already included in the software and do not have to be purchased as with other providers. MaintMaster can therefore be adapted very easily and quickly to the respective application scenarios. It is important to consider in advance exactly how you want to use the software. This requires precise planning and a high level of training for the maintenance staff.
However, Glas Trösch solved this with an excellent strategy, in the form of initial training of the project managers by MaintMaster and subsequent needs-based internal training of the maintenance staff responsible for MaintMaster at the individual sites.
"The flexibility of MaintMaster's maintenance software allows us to implement different application scenarios at the individual sites as required - without additional costs or the involvement of external consultants."
First positive results with MaintMaster
The introduction of MaintMaster has led to initial positive results. Before the implementation, the maintenance departments at the individual sites were mainly concerned with corrective maintenance. With the introduction of MaintMaster and its maintenance planning functions, this is starting to change. They are now focusing more on preventive maintenance in order to identify and remedy potential faults in advance.
With MaintMaster's analysis & reporting tools, it is also possible to show local site management what and how much work the maintenance teams are doing. This way, the workload as well as resource management can be better controlled.
The central project team also has access to the data and can thus plan investment decisions more soundly.
"With MaintMaster, my team and I now have an excellent overview of our sites and can provide local maintenance staff with a tool to organise maintenance activities more effectively".
MaintMaster's image navigation - A better overview of locations and machines
MaintMaster's image navigation is a very useful function for Glas Trösch to keep track of the condition of the machines at the different locations. Through the visual representation of the machines, both the maintenance departments on site and the central project management can quickly access important information such as machine data and machine parts and immediately identify problems. In addition, image navigation allows access to the machine history to check the progress of maintenance and repairs. Image navigation also enables excellent visualisation of the individual sites so that the central project management has a transparent and complete overview of the sites' condition at all times.
"When you use the image navigation from MaintMaster, you can practically see the location as if you were right there. That is ingenious. It's also very helpful for our staff on site, as you can navigate down to the smallest machine part and have all the important information at your fingertips."
Further advantages in working with MaintMaster
Individual queries:
Due to the flexible design and easy handling of the reporting tools, it is easy for the central project management around Mr. Spiliotis to create customised queries for individual locations and to support them in their maintenance activities.
Central knowledge database:
The fact that the same maintenance software is now used at most of the sites means that best practices can be exchanged and a central knowledge database makes it much easier to train new maintenance staff at Glas Trösch.
First-class support outweighs slight weaknesses of the maintenance software
Another important aspect that contributes to Glas Trösch's satisfaction when using the maintenance software is the excellent support provided by MaintMaster. When it comes to solving problems and implementing adjustments, Glas Trösch can always rely on experienced and competent contacts. For example, MaintMaster helped mirror settings from one location to another to ensure a uniform workflow and consistent database. Through close contact with the support team, Glas Trösch ensures that the implementation and use of MaintMaster runs smoothly and that the best possible results are achieved.
However, there are also points of criticism on the part of Glas Trösch. Mr Spiliotis, for example, would like to see better checklist functionality in order to process tours and inspections more efficiently and simply. He still sees potential for improvement here.
"If I had one wish, I would wish for better checklist management in the software. In my opinion, MaintMaster still has room for improvement here. But everything else, especially the great support, works very well so far."
MaintMaster & Glas Trösch - A look into the future
Manuel Spiliotis expects to be able to convince other locations of MaintMaster. There are also plans to tackle the issue of central spare parts management with MaintMaster. Mr Spiliotis expects this to result in more transparent and comprehensible spare parts management between the locations as well as optimised and more cost-effective spare parts ordering.
The introduction of plug & play IoT sensors from MaintMaster for plant monitoring is also planned in order to be able to react even better to potential faults or to be able to take action even before machine failures occur.
Glas Trösch is satisfied with the maintenance software from MaintMaster
Glas Trösch, a leading company in glass manufacturing and processing, has chosen the MaintMaster maintenance software to optimise its maintenance processes. The software meets all the company's important requirements such as multilingualism, data protection and ease of use.
Since the introduction of MaintMaster, the first positive results have become apparent, in particular a stronger focus on preventive maintenance and better resource planning. The image navigation in MaintMaster, which enables complete transparency over the individual locations and machines, is worth highlighting.
Despite minor points of criticism, such as the wish for a better checklist function, Glas Trösch is satisfied with the software and the first-class support from MaintMaster. The introduction of central spare parts management and IoT sensors for plant monitoring is planned for the future.
